*

Recently finished William Gibson’s book Pattern Recognition.

There are no spoilers in the rest of this, but I do discuss locations that appear in the book (though they appear early and you would be missing little to know that they are in it).

Even having finished it, I both enjoyed and disliked the main character and the tone of the telling, for connected reasons.  Her viscerally negative reactions to brand imagery and obsessively blank-slate design sense put me off, I think, because they represent an amplified version of my own experience of branding and fashion, and I think the experience of a lot of people in this age.  But the amplification, combined with the tone of the place and product descriptions that fill the story, build a sense of overall quaintness.  I feel like someone who has read a New York Times peace about his own experience, only to see that the names are all misspelled and the core details of the story have been passed through a poorly recorded audio transcript.  The places are almost all places I have lived during the times he was writing, except with London, where I have only visited (both when he was writing and more recently).  In each case, as with the main character’s excessive version of my own aversions to western branding (and indeed also a strange lack of negative response to japanese branding), the real thing tastes and looks both more interesting and more bland, more “so what”? compared to his nutrasweet version.

Gibson in his non-fiction writing (In Wired for instance, writing on Japan) has made it clear that he is intimately familiar with the places he has chosen as backdrops.  What I am left wondering then is, is the fakeness intentional to seem more “hip” for an audience (like the rabid japan-obsessives on Boingboing) that consider everything foreign inherently special and amazing, without ever leaving home?  Or is it accidental, exaggeration that fares better when, with his earlier work, there is no real version to compare to his prose?

Capturing the breathtaking gray gloom that is life in the terribly thought through urban environments across the US, that in any sane world would be considered parking lots at the entrance to hell.  The story

Here is a nice video interview with a former US Military arabic language interrogator who realized that the enemy was no different from himself.

He has received some acclaim and apparently has a well received monologue performance dealing with his experience.

This is all well and wonderful, but wouldn’t it be better if all of our young men and women grew up in an environment that made it clear, without having to go to war, that killing people out of respect for authority, national pride, sense of duty, these are all deeply wrong.  Love of your fellow man and compassion in the face of wrong is such a simple message, espoused by all major religions, and yet people are shocked when someone actually listens.

I just loved the ending of this article, as the writers aim to provide some “balance” to an issue with obviously no second side:

Release of the report spurred some objections yesterday.

The causes of cancer are “extremely complex and involve factors like genetics, the environment, lifestyle, and a host of other issues,” said Randy Huffman, vice president of scientific affairs at the Washington-based American Meat Institute, in a statement.

Isaac Asimov wrote this, not more than a few tens of minutes to read.  It is… well, I was not particularly happy today yet it gave me a feeling of beauty.

Check out the photo gallery and be overwhelmed by 250 or so photos

Not sure anyone I don’t really contact frequently is reading this blog, or why they even would, but those of you I haven’t been in touch with recently: While not leaving Tokyo, I am on the lookout for a new place to live, maybe Ebisu or Meguro station.  Definitely on my own, for various reasons.  If you know anyone with a nice place that they don’t need anymore, let me know.

Well written and absorbing non-fiction recounting of terrible and inspiring events.

While Chicago has never been a terrorist target, the police in Chicago sound like they do a fine job terrorizing the people.

In the three years I have been living in Japan thus far, I have made solid progress learning the language.  I can with some confidence sit through a japanese feature film without my eyes glazing over, confident I have at least caught the gross outlines of a plot.

But subtitles are still preferable, and I usually just wait for a DVD release.

Conversely, for the japanese person sitting next to me watching a DVD, it is no great excitement to watch a brand new hollywood movie, because there is anywhere from a 3 month to two year gap between when most movies are released in the US and when they hit Japanese theatrical, let alone DVD release.

This means I usually end up seeing things very late, or I scour the internet looking for fan-generated subtitles (either english ones for new japanese releases, or japanese ones for new english-language releases).

Either way, the DVD format is lacking, and sure enough I can’t even contemplate watching say, a spanish language release with a japanese friend.

That was mildly unpleasant, making me watch Motorcycle Diaries twice, and so on.

But Babel, sigh.

I really really wanted to see Babel in a proper theatre, and here is a film that is reportedly in six languages.  I don’t know if that is accurate, but there was no way I could just watch it in a japanese cinema.  I couldn’t just watch it on DVD either, because I wanted to enjoy not alone, but together.

I love the irony of a film titled “Babel” being unviewable together by two people with different native tongues.

So I redoubled my efforts to find a way to watch a film with both Japanese and English subtitles at the same time.
I located a fan-generated Japanese subtitle stream.

I got ahold of the US release, which has english subtitles.

I found not a single program for the Mac that supports this concept.

However, to my surprise, in Bootcamp under windows XP, The KMPlayer, a free video player, not only functions perfectly fine (even running IN PARALLELS!) but it allows the playback of multiple subtitle streams, regardless of whether those streams are part of the original feature or are sourced from a separate subtitle file.

We sat through the film together, and while I won’t make any plot spoilers, it was well worth sharing the experience for once.